February 23 2015

How are YOU doing on Twitter?

A lot of people complain to me about Twitter not working out for them.
Many state that the same effort put into Twitter as into Facebook results only in a fraction of the success from “fun work” on FB.

So why is Twitter so recommended for marketing when there is so much struggle involved?

It is true that while a lot of Facebook success can come naturally and almost accidentally, Twitter can involve a little bit of preparation before you throw yourself into it.

Here are some hints and tips that will help you do well if you need help getting pushed:

Never follow more people than people follow you

Just because you are allowed to follow 10 percent more people than people follow you doesn´t mean you need to do it. At no time you should ever appear like a spammer or someone who needs followers.

There is only one exception: In the beginning, getting up to the 2,000 follower mark is what everyone wants, so following a few people before being followed is ok.

But there are still much better ways to get started strong.

Spread your current social and search engine presence towards Twitter

Let´s say you have no followers yet. Use your current traffic and social presence to gain real followers by placing a Twitter widget on your blog. To this day, the strongest supporters amongst my followers are still the ones who followed me first and actively retweet me whenever something I post captures their interest. Being authentic is a must. Those people may not have had a strong presence on Twitter themselves at the time, but as time went by, their followers grew and because of that I continue to get the right push when I need it.

In addition, add your Twitter profile to Wefollow.
Join Just Unfollow and prune your account to not have less followers than people you follow:

The free version of Just Unfollow allows you to unfollow around 100 accounts a day and follow back around 25.
Following back people is not a bad idea, but don´t stress about following them back too quickly. Don´t worry about people unfollowing you after a couple of days for you not following them back. This is ok, because people using that strategy are usually not interested in you, but getting followers. Which of course is what your focus should be as well, but be selective and set the right tone:

You want people who are interested in you and your products and services. Not dead weight cluttering your timeline with unimportant nonsense.

At the same time, you should not unfollow people too quickly. Some of the best followers are people of unfluence who have helped me get 21,000 visits to a post just by retweeting me. Those people can take as long as a month to follow you back. So as long as you gain followers and you work hard on targeting THE RIGHT ACCOUNTS to follow, take a break and focus more of your energy on quality material that makes people happy that they have followed and “fanned” you.

So who should you follow?

Your Twitter strategy should be to use the platform to get immediate business (short term) while gaining targeted followers who may hire you or help you grow intermediately while establishing yourself as a brand worth paying attention to without having to follow more people than follow you.

Is there a benefit in using Tweetadder?

Using Tweetadder, as an example, I have managed to revive a business dying by following only 30-40 people daily. This example should go as a reminder that when you are not happy with your growth, rather than blindly following mass amounts of profiles, it is a lot wiser to detect accounts interested in you and your products NOW.
While some people are happy following whoever follows their competition, my strategy was different:

On Tweetadder, I have researched better keyterms to type in and capture people interested in what I have to offer.

Example:

If you let Tweetadder run and look for very targeted keyterms, so targeted, very few are typing them in, and you automatically follow people shortly after sending those tweets, you will capture potential clients and make sales right away without following too many people who cannot do anything for you.

Choosing keyterms on Twitter is different than with search engines

Think outside the regular box. If you use the terms you target in Google to detect related tweets, chances are what will pop up is competitors promoting their product and following them would be a complete waste.

Instead put yourself into the shoes of the people who could be interested in what you have to offer.

When you don´t follow as many people as Twitter allows you but rather force yourself to do the right experiments and keep your follower/following ratio around 1:1, you are likely to find what is best to meet your short term, intermediate and long term goals.

But until you have the right amount of followers and things kick off well, it is your job to play around with the best terms to add into Tweetadder to ensure that there is going to be a great conversion from your efforts which in turn as well is going to help grow your account as a good side-effect rather than that being your prime target.

There are many people who “succeed” in getting tens of thousands of followers, but when they tweet, nobody clicks on their site. So don´t let people promoting more Twitter followers mislead you into believing that this should be your goal.

So let´s summarize:

1) Never focus on getting followers by the numbers.
2) There is always a better list of Tweeters to follow.
Never stop finding them.
3) People get bored with repetitive tweets. Shake things up, but always come back to the basics.

February 18 2015

Everyone wants traffic. Especially free traffic. Ranking well in the search engines can get you great exposure for a long time to come without the need to constantly fight for business.
But few out of the Millions of sites that are out there manage to capture the huge amount of targeted web searches properly.

But …

Did you know that a huge percentage of sites do not rank well due to shortsighted SEO strategies?

Here are 7 common SEO mistakes that can hurt you substantially:

1) Being too pushy

Google never rewards aggressive behavior. Steady growth however is being appreciated. If you have to show aggressing, try passive aggression.
Remember: You are not trying to fight Google. You are trying to fight your competition.
So don´t make Google your enemy. Google is the referee. Usually right, but sometimes wrong.
But as long as you show respect to the referee, you shouldn´t have any problems. Follow their advice and do a good job.

2) Keyword stuffing

Include important keyterms, but don´t repeatedly use them without making sense. Write naturally. Know the terms that you are after. Then write about it in your own style. Google knows what you content is about without you having to remind them so much, they refuse to hear anything about it.

3) Aggressive link building

Have you ever heard some people without a good reputation praise someone making you believe this person shouldn´t be trusted based on association?

Google feels the same.

4) Not writing natural

One of the biggest mistakes is to target a few top keywords and then find clumsy ways to write sentences around them. The truth is that you are much better off writing a lot and writing natural. When you write natural, you are naturally bound to include a high number of off-beat phrases surrounding your targeted top keyterms. Those phrases individually speaking are not likely to get a lot of searches and maye 30-40 total a month will show up for the top ones in your stats. But the more you write naturally, the higher this amount will become. You are not going to make a huge impact quickly by going for the high-traffic terms. But a lot of valid content is likely to create search engine terms that will on a combined level add up to a good amount of not only traffic, but oftentimes HIGHLY TARGETED traffic from people who know exactly what you want finding exactly what you have.

5) Ignoring individual products

Did you know that some of the very best traffic comes from people searching for specific products that you carry?
So why don´t you get more buyers?
The reason is simply:
Just as demonstrated in mistake number 4, many website owners are overlooking the power of quantity. Each product page should have at least 300 words describing the product, if possible in your own words. Hire an employee to do that for you. Someone who knows the products. You can add some generic descriptions from the manufacturer and a review from a customer if you like. If someone searches for a specific product and happens to find that product on your page, you have almost a guaranteed buyer if the price is right. So don´t be too generic in your focus. See what you already offer and then spend your time targeting specific products while working towards the toughter keywords which will carry a higher amount of traffic in the future.

6) Bad structure, broken links, duplicate content

The tech aspect behind solid SEO is to think as a visitor would. There has to be a solid flow of content. The moment links wind up dead, slow loading speed hinders potential clients from viewing products and the overall website visiting experience is less than satisfactory, Google will take notice that your site might not be what their users expect when typing in keywords that would fit your inventory.

Be a perfectionist this once.
After your site is built and fully functional, you can take a break and focus on the marketing aspects …

knowing that your efforts will not be wasted by an uphill battle against shortsighted approaches trying to save a little money and building a skyscraper on a shaky foundation.

This is a one time undertaking where all mistakes have to be avoided at any cost.

7) Missing out on opportunities out of laziness or not making the time

Having redesigned a lot of sites myself, I have learned that this is the most important factor when it comes to making sure that you are ready to go.
If you don´t invest time, some money and/or effort, you might as well include a redesign budget for the upcoming quarter of your business already.
Having said this:
I have personally parttaken in the redesign of many sites and realized how crucial it is to:

a) Hire a designer who designs your site with the search engines in mind

Without it, you will struggle and miss out on business. I have also seen designers intentionally hinder search engines from properly crawling your sites. Some do that in order to see you their SEO services or PPC campaigns at a later time when you realize you have a beautiful online store that nobody goes to.

If you have a great designer with a proven track record to build sites that perform well, then you have the power.
If you do not know of one, make sure you find him or her. Don´t pick the next best designer based on price and look of their sites alone. Inquire how well their sites are doing in Google and if you can feel comfortable leaving the future of your business in their hands, then give it a go.

b) Hire a professional SEO consultant to ensure that you are going to rank

This person needs to have a proven track record as well. If you are looking for one who can guarantee you success, continue here.

c) Do your homework and learn on your own

You can do so from this blog or whatever other good sources you choose to get your information from.

February 15 2015

One of the most important aspects in web development is branding. You can get fast results with the right marketing campaign, but in order to become a brand that sticks, there are a few rules to follow from the very beginning in order to ensure that there will never be a
need to redesign in order to keep the flow of a powerful brand uninterrupted.

1) Your site needs the right dimensions to integrate your logo, slogan and header

Elegance and style is a must. People respond to the vibe they get and decide to buy when they feel “on the right track” and somehow connected. You cannot expect too much when you simply use a site put together by slapping whatever ingredient needs to go on there wherever there is space. Make sure you first focus on your logo, your slogan and the fact that even visitors not buying immediately need to enjoy their experiences enough and memorize you in a good enough way for them to want to return or mention you to their friends.

2) Let your visitors see what others have said about you

The best advertising has always been word-of-mouth. Or references projecting it to the web. Have you seen the promises, the claims, the “we are the cheapest and best” sorts of annoying and meaningless declarations?

Those are terrible and nobody really takes them seriously. However: Many times people are in doubt when dealing with a company they are not used to.

How will they treat me as a customer? What are their return policies? Have other customers been happy with them?

A part of branding is also showing people that you have a good reputation. This goes hand in hand with the overall image that can turn into a brand.
What are you known for?
Ask yourself that question.
Then find the right reviews that you can dig up, whether they were sent to you by email or left on a blog or forum as a comment.
Let those be seen by your website visitors and they will feel comfortable knowing that your promises have been delivered in those previous cases.

3) Always take the high road

Avoid negativity and making yourself look like a jealous competitor. You may have a competitor doing a little bit better than you at this point, but look towards the future:
They might be out of business and you lead the flock. You will then look like a bully and need to make changes.
There is however an exception:

Always use humor when talking about someone else in a less than flattering manner.

If you find a way to take a crack at the competition´s slogan without being direct, it can come off in a funny way that you recognize something silly within their campaign that people will relate to.
If you do that, you can have a definite winner and whatever happens to them and you in the future, if you are not directly mention their name or indicate them as a definite competitor, the joke will vanish alongside their dominance in your industry.

4) Praise yourself through hints

Of course, your slogan, headline and whatever people see first can contain a promise. A strong word of confidence will get attention. But when you already have the attention of those people, then it is way too simple to just go ahead and mention what has worked for you. “Thanks to our many customers happy with our product, we can now offer you something else at a special price” lets people also sense inner confidence and rather views you mentioning a great service as something granted rather than a desperate promise in order to get more clients.

Express endless confidence in your service or product

When you push, people get their defenses up. When you express convidence, they are drawn to you.
Make your visitors want to give you a try. It also sparks conversations about your company if you come up with something interesting. When people talk about you in a positive or curious way, it helps get the word out. And once one has tried your product or service and others ask “How was it?”, then a positive answer can go long ways considering that the talk about you has already previously begun.

5)Look at your strong sides and build a brand from there

Brainstorm about your inventory and determine 1-3 things you do exceptionally better than your competitors. What are your best deals? And most of all: Which products sell best already that clients are the happiest with?

“Home of the best deals on …” is usually better than “Check out our deals”.

Find a product your are carrying which sells well and make sure that you reach more people with it. Once you start selling this, then your other products will become interesting to them as well. Association with a great deal will ignite the flame that starts the fire of you becoming a topic of conversation. And with that follows word-of-mouth advertising. Which is what builds a brand and upgrades you to a level where plugging yourself is no longer the business strategy you focus on, but rather maintaining your standard and from there expanding towards making all of your inventory equally attractive pricewise and in terms of quality and support.

6) Be on top of the latest and address your visitors´ intersts

Whether or not you want it: You need a blog.
And your blog has to be up-to-date with what is going on in your industry.
Simply offering great deals might get you business, but you will not be able to dominate your niche unless you can prove that you know it well.

If you are not an active blogger, make a schedule. Let your schedule determine a time when you update people. It can be a weekly post about the latest and you can simply list what you believe to be of interest. Not only will it attract new visitors with trending keyterms, it will also let everyone know that you are determined to keep your clients happy by not missing out on what the future has to offer.

Eliminate any unanswered question, because you will not only deliver material to Google searchers and social media followers, you will in time have a weblog known as a valid resource providing answers where other companies are missing out.
And a part of your brand has to be that you are available and don´t leave people hanging without providing them with what they need. And once you are known for that, you cannot lose and will not be overlooked when someone has a need for what you are in business for.

7) Success stories sell

You are who you hang with. And if you are surrounded by successful people, then you as well will wind up being elevated to that level. If you are out there networking, make sure it is with those who are driven, not people who look for answers without following good advice.

TED has become a brand affiliated with guaranteed success stories shared by those who have made it. Who exactly is behind TED? Who knows and who cares. What we know about TED is:

a) The most successful people worldwide are associated with them and willing to contribue.
b) They only allow people to represent them who are on a level where others want to be.

This is the power of branding where you are no longer questioned or have to prove yourself in order to be in the public eye and if you follow their principle, you too can be visible and known without others questioning your quality or your intentions.

Take some risks, but always protect your brand

Setbacks are a part of business. There is nothing wrong with having a few. If you didn´t, you would probably not be able to make a mark with your strong points.
However:
There are a few mistakes you cannot make and one of them is to allow a failed attempt to get attention taint your brand as a whole.
Controvery can bring attention as long as you have you back covered knowing you will be the winner in the end. But too much controversy will have others turned off quickly. It will only encourage competitors to move in and offer a more peaceful shopping experience.

How far you should go is always determined by how your overall sales grow.

Don´t sweat the small stuff as long as you are in request. What they say and what they do are two different things. But when negativity affects your sales, you know you need to tone it down.

Your overall reputation will carry you to the top. So continue to climb. And when nobody can touch you or know you down, you are on the right track.

The most important thing about the ladder to success is a strong foundation. Otherwise it will fall over and get you nowhere.

Even if you climb slowly, as long as you are headed to the top, you are doing it right.

So continue to rise but never shake your own foundation. And as long as you keep on climbing knowing that nothing can knock you down, your service as a company is going to overshadow everything else and your brand will draw customers knowing that you will deliver what they have come to receive.

January 27 2015

A very good blog marketing strategy is always to use tactics that keep forums active.
Forums are not always the best platforms to monetize and regular posters often are not interested in your products. But the activity and sharing of interesting threads gets the brand to be seen, so the indirect marketing aspect can carry a business to unlimited heights.

January 23 2015

As the name suggests, Free Web Hosting is a completely free of cost way of hosting your website. It is a decent way to get started with web development but, it has its own drawbacks which no hosting provider will disclose to you.

January 21 2015

The content is not only important to make the readers go through your blog but, there is one more important point that you tend to forget while writing a blog- blog design styles. This step is of great significance as it highlights your blog and makes it look distinctive and readers seek for unique content.

January 20 2015

Website design plays a significant role when it comes to engaging and driving customers to your website. Back in the last few years, website design dealt only with the issues related to the desktops but now, website designing has spread its wings of expertise in the mobile world as well.

January 19 2015

In the past 10 years, Google has improved drastically being able to determine more and more what it is that satisfies their users. But still there are ways to allow Google to properly view what may work to your advantage. The following post is focused primarily on balance.

Balance between content, call-for-action and satisfying the Google spiders looking for what you have to offer.

Here is some advice that may help you avoid misunderstandings between your implemented vision and the search engine giant treating you better once they “get it”:

1) An XML sitemap

What visitors may see is something not really necessary. But then again, who clicks on the footer links of a homepage to actually look at a sitemap?

A sitemap is seen by Google as an overview of your content. If a sitemap is present with less than 50 links per page and, if necessary, categorized if a large site demands a high amount of links to cover the most important pages, Google looks at it as you, the site owner, directing them as to where according to your experience the most important pages according to keyterms are located.

2) Important links on the homepage

What visitors see:

“Pay attention to this!”

What Google reads:

“The main content is here!”

This makes balancing genuine content and call-for-action more important than ever before considering there are so many pages you may have in the back with excellent content that Google never pays attention to. Why?
Because you don´t let Google know that it is important enough for you to let your visitors access it easier from your homepage.

3) Java-driven call-for-action

What people see:

It depends on how the scripts are being placed. They can be delicately implemented where they are highly visible yet not intrusive and taking up too much space.What matters more than anything is the location. The right typography surrounding such script also tells visitors whether or not there is something to pay more attention to or not.

What Google reads:

Google sees an added element which is being tolerated as part of the site even when not helping keyword wise as long as there is no clutter and the coding is elegant enough to pass.
Again: Typography and words surrounding the script are very important indicating that there is something to do that gives people an option to purchase something without being too intrusive.Passive aggressive behaviour is often being rewarded. Google hates spam. But Google is ok with you using your site to benefit financially as long as it provides visitors with what they are looking for without leaving a bad taste in their mouth.

Never let robot.txt files block any content. Google has to be able to follow all content to see what is a click away. That way visitors are able to find what they are looking for and Google knows about it feeling comfortable with your site being a valuable resource.

4) CSS-driven content

What visitors see:

Fresh content.

What Google reads:

Fresh content.

This allows to make links larger and bolder without having to use h-tags. It is a spam-free way to feed your site with additional content without it becoming spammy, even though it adds links.

Remember:

It´s all about balance. Too much of anything can be misread. So keep your site without too much emphasis on something that alerts the spiders negatively.

5) Embedding a Youtube video

What visitors see:

Something positive for those who see the content that Google sees, but don´t want to be bothered reading it. That is ideal considering we are not boring people away, but rather show the option of reading material that Google is recognizing as keyword-rich content. In the video, you can tell people what you want them to hear to feel comfortable about your product. But remember: Keyterms used within your Youtube presentation are also being read. So just be natural and let them know what you think they should.

What Google reads:

Again, being a Google-owned vehicle, Youtube does bring addition content in many ways and links from Youtube itself to your site can be helpful. Adding a Youtube video not only broadens your reach in terms of taking it up a nudge social media wise, you also are “working with Google” so-to-speak.

And this is something that I believe is being rewarded. Especially long-term speaking.

6) Meta tags: Title and description

What visitors see:

Title tags

Visitors see what Google displays in their results as to how you describe the page they are landing on and throught their visit, you title tag appears in their browser which can later help them revisit their site on their end easily.

Description tags

Often, but not always, the meta tags description is being displayed under your link in the Google results, so your tag line, your brief introduction and what you want to share as a first impression does make an impact.

What Google reads:

Title tags

Just like the visitors see your title tags paying attention to what you say about yourself, Google also is deeply interested in what you classify yourself as within 65 characters or less. In other words: The attention span you waste on people will not benefit you in Google either should you try to add too much.

Recommendations: Use your company name always in addition of a tag line or 2-5 words describing best what it is you do.

Description

Forget the meta tag description as it won´t be used other than for display purposes in the Google results.Rather make sure the right content at the right places of your site gets Google´s attention first. That way you will be read for what is actually on your site as title tags have already given you the opportunity to guide Google in your own direction.

Again: Remember balance!

While writing style can alter in description tags, title tags and the content on the page itself, the overall theme has to match to not be labelled as spam. If you use h tags, it cannot hurt to use some of the keywords present in your title tag within the top ones such as h2 and preferably h1.

If you have a slogan without keywords and want to use that in your title tag, make sure it is also readable on the site other than within an image. And if you use an image displaying keywords, use those keywords in an alt-tag to let Google know what your image is saying to include that in the table of your content.

7) Typography

Never look at Google as perfection. Close to perfection sure. But perfection is something Google is striving for. And as Google is striving towards it, simulating and properly analying all signals and their effects on visitors is a must. That includes one of my favorite topics:

Tweak your site just right to allow people to know what part of your content should matter to them and send the right signal to Google that way as well.

Assume that when it comes to typography, Google reads what visitors see!

8) A clean, fast-loading design

What visitors see:

Something fresh, non-intrusive. A clean design allows the eyes to easily glide to where a visitors can decide to make a purchase or read more when undecided. It works best in most cases unless a site is strictly created to call-for-action without worrying too much about what the search engines do with it. That can only be done when a good advertising campaign leads people ready for the move directly to that url. In all other cases, at least a little bit of information is a must.

What Google reads:

A good experience for the visitor. Even if they don´t decide to become clients, at least they get some useful information to help them decide to make a purchase at a later time or use Google for more specific results without having left a bad impression as going to a useless website would.

As for the loading time: This is something highly ranked in terms of what matters to Google and visitors. Any clutter delaying the information being displayed can get people to leave your site. And Google does not want to chance disappointing their users.

9) The right placement for your content

This is a science going straight back to the psychology of web design where just like with typography, Google is more and more reading the areas of content the way that visitors do.

So spend some time to read the article (again) that I have previously written where you can determine how your site is best designed for your purpose.

And remember: Based on what your site is set to accomplish, flexibility in terms of content placement is a must. And even though a new article is in the works, there is no set formula. Just a few guidelines.

10) Amounts of images

As mass amounts are distracting for anyone not interested in images, setting up a gallery is highly recommended if you have many you would like to share. It helps Google easily find the image section and rank them in Google images. This is not always useful, so it depends on what type of content you have.
If for example you own a travel site, having an image appear in the Google results for a vacation destination you are selling can bring you business.So make sure you send both, visitors and Google alike to where your images are located without forcing them to sift through any to get to the main content of your page.

If a site is useful, it shows. This is an area you cannot always define in terms of a formula. It comes with experience knowing how to build a site efficiently. And once you get the hang of it, conversions increase, more targetted visitors are showing up and the overall business you run goes up due to a great flow benefitting your brand.

Never be short-sighted. Keep calm and make long-term decisions. Pay attention to what works and what doesn´t and stay away from doing anything that you may need to get back to and change at a later time in fear of getting you penalized.